Justin Timberlake

CHICAGO – “Trouble with the Curve,” recently released on Blu-ray and DVD, opens with Clint Eastwood talking to his unresponsive cock and then kicking a chair across the room. He’s in full ornery old man mode in this movie that features talented people working with a script that doesn’t allow any of them to actually use their talents.

CHICAGO – Clint Eastwood keeps going and going. His reputation as an actor is secure in a long career, and his power as a director is Oscar worthy. His ability to recognize a limp script? Not so much, if “Trouble with the Curve” is a gauge. Amy Adams and Justin Timberlake are along for the pitch.

CHICAGO – Baseball gets the metaphor-for-life treatment once again in “Trouble with the Curve,’ starring Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams. Eastwood plays an aging baseball scout estranged from his daughter (Adams) and seeks redemption in both arenas of his life. Making his directorial debut is Robert Lorenz, who has worked with Eastwood since “Bridges of Madison County.’

CHICAGO – During last year’s groundswell of Occupy protests, several films and television shows attempted to exploit the class divide for the purposes of entertainment. Only ABC’s irresistible soaper, “Revenge,” fared equally well with critics and audiences, who embraced it as a guiltily pleasurable fantasy in which the rich are brought to justice. Too bad that premise is so rarely a reality.

CHICAGO – There’s a spirit and energy in Will Gluck’s “Friends With Benefits” that’s infectious enough to get it over some of its screenwriting humps. It’s a film that features two beautiful people dancing to a Michael Buble flash mob in the middle of Times Square. If those beautiful people were Josh Duhamel and Katherine Heigl, most critics would have audibly retched. But Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis are so remarkably charismatic that they make the cliches of “Friends With Benefits,” recently released on Blu-ray and DVD, much easier to take.

CHICAGO – Andrew Niccol has delivered complex, daring science fiction before, most notably in his scripts for “The Truman Show” and “Gattaca.” Sadly, “In Time” will never be mentioned in the same breath with those films.

CHICAGO – Everyone in “Bad Teacher” is talented and they all do good work here but it’s one of those weird films that never develops an overall comic timing. Every time it feels like it’s about to find a groove and develop a rhythm, there’s a scene that just doesn’t work. It’s a moderately entertaining rental that isn’t nearly as entertaining as its trailers made it out to be.

CHICAGO – In our latest futuristic thriller edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 30 admit-two movie passes up for grabs to the advance Chicago screening of “In Time” starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried and Cillian Murphy!

CHICAGO – It seems that carnal canoodling without strings attached seems all the rage in romantic comedies these days. The twentysomething set, having seen their share of divorces and break-ups, prefer the Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis method in “Friends with Benefits.”

CHICAGO – In our latest romantic comedy edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 50 admit-two passes up for grabs to the advance Chicago screening of the new film “Friends With Benefits” starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis!